I look at the lights below the plane. I trace the grid between the skyscrapers and the river and refuse to accept that the tiny speck of light from my house is no brighter than all of the surrounding specks. This should be the trip of a lifetime, but it hurts. This isn’t the headspace I thought I’d be in for this flight. I hoped I’d have my wife and son by my side for my first international trip to promote my work, but international travel isn’t advised while she waits to receive her US citizenship (I can already see the bloodstains forming on her hands). Even worse, the afternoon I had planned got interrupted. Instead of going on a walk to the park to spend our last bit of time together before I leave for about 12 days, I wound up on my hands and knees scrubbing the basement floor.

For the first time in his 8 years of life, our dog had an explosive case of stomach issues. As we said in the Peace Corps, it appeared he was riding the “two-headed dragon.” I’ve lived on a monkey sanctuary, I’ve lived in India, I’ve lived in one of the poorest parts of Africa, and I’ve raised a three-year-old boy, and I can safely say that what was waiting for me in the carpet in my office was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen or smelled in my entire life.

But it is what it is, and I’ve silently wept looking down on the house where my son is trying to sleep without hearing his daddy tell him a story. Now, I need to focus on making the most of this trip for the sake of my wife, son, and entire family who have done nothing but support me on this adventure.

Whelp. It’s been almost a year since I’ve updated my website, and so much has (and hasn’t) happened. First, Spain. I have two books that have recently come out, which is surreal. I think I’m so focused on the big picture that two books – a collection of poetry and a novel – being published by smaller publishers in Spain doesn’t seem like a big deal. But it really is. I can tell because everybody else keeps congratulating me.

I’m currently on my way to Valencia, where the publisher of my collection of poetry is located, to do a book launch. To sign books and hopefully make a few new friends.

In terms of the Spanish-language prose of it all, the novel I just released is a sequel to my other novel. It’s a philosophical horror novel about the dangers of pursuing your dreams and putting those selfish ends above all else. For the sake of continuity, I decided to publish it with the same publisher.

There’s another thing I’ve been reluctant to admit. Since the publisher for my novels is pretty small and stretched for resources, they couldn’t do a super thorough revision of my first novel, meaning it got published with a number of small errors. The problem is that I’m such a perfectionist, not to mention that I’m a little self-conscious about writing in my second language, so seeing my work published with typos and other mistakes has made me reluctant to promote it too much.

Thankfully, the publishers have agreed to launch a second edition of that first novel, so I’ve been pouring all of my free time into revisions. I’ve already found a few typos in my new novel too, despite proofreading it like ten times, meaning a second edition will be needed for this one too.

For my work in English, I still have the unpublished collection of poetry in English, along with a novel. I’ve come so close with those, but so far I haven’t broken through.

All of that is boring, though. I don’t care a ton about stuff I wrote a long time ago. I have new projects too that have been driving me crazy. I still have the unpublished collection of poetry in English, along with a novel. I’ve come so close with those, but so far I haven’t broken through.

My biggest frustration lately has been trying to make progress on my new novels in both English and Spanish. For the new novel in English, I was trying to do something super literary: an exploration of the American dream inspired by the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. However, after 16 months, I was only looking at 40 pages, and each paragraph was excruciating. Then, one day, I decided to just start writing without thinking, without ambition, without trying to create something great. What I have now is an entirely different novel, and in just a few weeks, I’ve managed to write almost 50 pages.

My new novel in Spanish is equally ambitious. Each chapter has its own unique perspective and style, which is absolutely exhausting to write. With this novel, too, I had come to a standstill. Then, with the breakthrough on this new novel in English, I’ve suddenly found renewed inspiration for my work in Spanish as well.

Since I have finished poetry collections in both English and Spanish, I’m waiting to see how my poetry reinvents itself going forward. I’d like to challenge myself even more to test new approaches and put more work into my daily “throw away” writing.

This has all been tough, though, because I’m still a real person living in the real world. I have a three-year-old son who has unlimited energy and a virtuosic drive for mischief. Every day, I pick him up from school, and we go to the park or go on a bike ride. Each morning is a new adventure. When it would be faster for me to feed him and dress him, he wants to do everything himself. When I need him to be independent, he suddenly needs my help for everything.

Finally, perhaps the biggest drain on my mental and emotional energy is teaching. Since I was 5 (27 years ago), I’ve pretty much been either a teacher or student for all but 1 or 2 of those years, and I can say this last quarter has been the toughest quarter of my life. I teach at a high school in Minneapolis where literally all of my students are Latino. That means that when Operation Metro Surge came to town, we switched to online classes. I had to balance the logistics of online learning with the students’ fears and anxieties, plus their teenager nature of being easily distracted by their phones and TVs at home. I also had to fight against my own distractions while being at home all day.

It seemed like things were going to end in disaster, but since we’ve resumed in-person classes about a month ago, the students have been busting their asses. I actually had to adjust my plans for some of my classes because the students managed to get caught up and get ahead so quickly.

It’s that level of investment (that I almost have to resist) that makes me think I’ve found the right job for me. I’ve never cared about anything at any other place I’ve worked. This job drives me crazy for all the right reasons. After all, I’d rather be stressed about improving the lives of high school kids who haven’t been given a lot of opportunities than stress myself out trying to help some stupid international businessman buy more stupid zebras for his own stupid, private safari park.

So that’s where I’m at. Flying over the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Spain to read a few poems to a handful of old people. In the summer, I’ll be starting a master’s in teaching at St. Thomas University. In September, my son will start at a public preschool program. My wife will be a US citizen soon, and I’ll be here to help her live with the guilt of hitching her wagon to this morally precarious (at best) horse.

We’ll see if anything comes of all of this.